Panasonic Eluga goes on sale in Europe

Remember the Panasonic Eluga announced earlier this year at MWC? Well the good news is that if you’ve been meaning to get your hands on the device, the company has announced that the Eluga has been launched in Europe. Online retailer Expansys has started stocking the device and is retailing it for £365 (~$588). If color choice isn’t really a big deal for you, the black version of the device is available now while the silver version is expected to be available next week.

For those who might have missed our coverage during MWC, the Panasonic Eluga would be the Japanese company’s first Android smartphone that it will be launching outside of Japan. The company had expressed their hopes and interest in expanding their smartphone range to other countries and it looks like Europe will be their first markets.

As far as hardware is concerned, don’t expect a powerhouse. The Panasonic Eluga will feature a 1GHz TI-OMAP dual-core processor, a 4.3” 960×540 OLED qHD display, NFC capabilities, an 8MP rear-facing camera, 8GB of internal storage onboard and will come with Android 2.3 Gingerbread preinstalled. An update to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich is expected to be available in the summer. Unfortunately no word on when it will be arriving stateside. [Press release]